LIFE IS NOT A JOURNEY

Existence,
The physical universe is basically playful.
There is no necessity for it whatsoever.
It isn't going anywhere.

That is to say it doesn't
Have some destination
That it ought to arrive at, but that it is
Best understood by analogy with music.
Because music as an art form
Is essentially playful.
We say "You play the piano"
You don't work for piano. Why?
Music differs from, say, travel.
When you travel,
You are trying to get somewhere.
One doesn't make the end of a composition.
The point.
If that was so,
The best conductors would be those who played fastest.
And there would be composers who only wrote finales.
People would go to a concert just to hear one crackling chord
Because that's the end!

Existence,
The physical universe is basically playful.
There is no necessity for it whatsoever.
It isn't going anywhere.
Existence,
The physical universe is basically playful.
That it is best understood by the analogy with music.
Because music,
As an art form is essentially playful.

Same way with dancing.
You don't aim at a particular spot in the room
That's where you should arrive.
The whole point of the dancing is the dance.
Now, but we don't see that as
Something brought by our education into our everyday conduct.
We have a system of schooling
Which gives a completely different impression.
It's all graded
And what we do is put the child into the corridor
Of this grade system with a kind of,
"Come on kitty, kitty, kitty."
And you go onto kindergarten now
And that's a great thing because when you finish that
You get into first grade.
And then, "Come on" first grade leads to second grade and so on.
And then you get out of grade school
And you got high school.
And it's revving up, the thing is coming,
Then you're going to go to college.
And by Jove, then you've got graduate school
And when you're through with graduate school
You go out to join the world.
Then you get into some racket
Where you're selling insurance.
And they've got that quota to make,
And you're going to make that.
And all the time that thing is coming,
It's coming, it's coming.
That great thing, that great thing.
Thing is coming, it's coming, it's coming.
That great thing, that great thing,
The success you're working for.
Then you wake up one day about 40 years old
And you say, "My God, I've arrived"
(laughter) "I'm there."
And you don't feel very different from what you've always felt.
By expectation, look at the people who live
To retire, to put those savings away,
And then when they're 65,
They don't have any energy left,
They're more or less impotent.
And they go rot in a senior citizens community.
Because we simply cheated ourselves the whole way down the line.
But if we thought of life by analogy with a journey,
With a pilgrimage,
Which had a serious purpose at the end.
But the thing was to get to that thing at that end.
Success, or whatever it is,
Or maybe in heaven
After you're dead.
But we missed the point the whole way along.
It was a musical thing,
And you were supposed to sing
Are to dance while the music was being played.

Existence,
The physical universe is basically playful.
There is no necessity for it whatsoever.
It isn't going anywhere.

Existence,
The physical universe is basically playful.
But it is best understood by the analogy with music.
Because music,
As an art form is essentially playful.